Earendel
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I'm a Factorio developer now!
🕑 Added 2021-02-07 00:35:39 +0000 UTCSo as mentioned in the latest FFF, I'm Wube's new concept artist: https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-365
So what does this mean for my mods and other works?
Two main things have changed.
First.
Over the last (5 years?) of developing mods, the major Factorio updates have caused some really big problems for mod development. The biggest standout was whichever version changed the way that terrain was generated and I took holiday to work on a new version of Alien Biomes practically non-stop for a few days to get a new working version, and it ended up being almost a completely new build. Having detailed behind the scenes knowledge of changes before the happen will be a huge time saver.
Second.
Running into game engine limitations has been a constant struggle with my mods. Most of my mods are made specifically to push the boundaries of gameplay, and add new gameplay mechanics. It's stuff that hasn't been done before so often I have to make feature requests to get the game engine changed a little. Sometimes it was hard to convince the Factorio devs that a request actually has value, and if whoever read my feature request didn't agree there was no way to escalate the issue or ask for a 2nd opinion. Now maybe my requests will be taken a little more seriously, and if it's something I feel strongly about and all else fails then I have a direct line to Kovarex. How cool is that?
What hasn't changed?
The plans for my mods haven't really changed.
I'm still putting lots of time into the mods and that won't change. I'm starting to get though the backlog of bugs and small issues the built up during my winter break.
There are a few fairly medium sized features for Space Exploration that are nearly done (like a space capsule update).
The equipment gantry is finally working now (it needed a game engine change). The main hold up on that is that the plan was for it to be part of AAI Industry, but I'm considering making it a standalone mod. It can be useful in Space Exploration so that you can equip a spidertron remotely before rocketing it off to start a new colony.
The next big feature is going to be space elevators for Space Exploration. It is still at the early stage of experimenting with cloning parts of trains to other surfaces without breaking too much in the process.
There's a long plan for future content, some of that is on the roadmap, but there's still a lot of secret stuff too. You can checkout the roadmap here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/18vqKDduFUbqxnJLqD5PJPvb1kxRoN1Er3LGQLSSkW5I
Comments
Earendel
I'm the concept artist, but I do have input on how things work and I'm part of the group that plans game design for game mechanics for new content.
Suslik
Can you share which role you're doing at Wube? I heard they hired you to do art-related stuff, but I wish they allowed you to work on game mechanics more.
